To GT or not to GT

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 16, 2005, 6:48 pm

OK... I'm a dad with 2 wonderful little boys who needs a new video card. As I'm paying for Daycare and Pre-School money is tight... heh, really tight but I haven't purcahsed a new card in years as I'm currently running an old Ti4200. Being as it's a DX8 card and not the fastest one as that I can't play any of the latest games at a decent framerate except for WoW and even it slows down in Orgrimmar...

So... I'm trying to decide what to buy and want to get as much bang for my buck as possible. I want a 256MB card but can't find one that has what I want and is AGP.

My current system is an Athlon XP 3000+ with a Gig of DDR400 in dual channel mode, it's not the fastest but pretty top of the line for AGP so I don't want to get a new MB as my processor is a socket-A and I would have to purchase a new processor as well. Next year I plan to build a new system with a Dual Core Athlon64 and go PCIe so this will be the last AGP card I purchase.

From what I can tell on AGP I have the following options...

6600 256MB DDR (128bit interface)
6600GT 128MB DDR3 (128bit)
6800 128MB DDR (256bit)
6800GT 256MB DDR3 (256bit)

and an Ultra is out of the question... I'm not really considering a 6600 but might if the price was really cheap. What I'm trying to figure out is wheither or not the regular 6800 if decently faster than a 6600GT? And if so then how much am I going to loose if I stick there rather than paying a few dollars more for the 6800GT? I'm up on these video cards from a technical perspective so what I'm looking for here is real world experience. With the processor I've got is the 6800 going to be more than I can push? if so it won't make sense to get the GT.

Please let me know your thoughts, I hope to order something tomorrow.

Thanks!
Marb

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » August 16, 2005, 8:21 pm

For starters look at pricewatch.com before you buy them anywhere else, and make sure you check the seller out at resellerratings.com.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 16, 2005, 8:29 pm

I usually purchase at NewEgg, never had a problem with them. Sometimes use MWave if a single item is cheaper but can almost always build an entire system at NewEgg cheaper.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » August 16, 2005, 9:39 pm

Memory bandwidth is probably more important than raw CPU clocks with graphics, but I've only got the lowly 9600 in this rig which plays everything just fine compared to a 4100. Personally I'd just go with your price point, any of those cards should last you until the fans burn out anyway =)

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 16, 2005, 10:09 pm

if you are going PCI-e next year, i'd just go with the cheapest thing that is gonna get you by with the AGP

Durew · Post by **Durew** » August 17, 2005, 12:57 am

Here ya go:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardw ... index.html

Scroll down a bit to see a comparisons chart

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 17, 2005, 12:15 pm

one nice thing about the GTs, is that they can be overclocked to Ultra settings. They have all 16 pixel pipes guaranteed open (can unlock the last 4 in plain 6800s, but might not all work). but i've read people OC'ing a 6800GT to 400+/1100+ with stock cooling. i'm gonna give it a try with the GT i just bought.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » August 17, 2005, 3:56 pm

Voronwë wrote:one nice thing about the GTs, is that they can be overclocked to Ultra settings. They have all 16 pixel pipes guaranteed open (can unlock the last 4 in plain 6800s, but might not all work). but i've read people OC'ing a 6800GT to 400+/1100+ with stock cooling. i'm gonna give it a try with the GT i just bought.

Voro speaks the truth! Use the free version of 3DMark03 to test your system before and after OC'ing. If you get any sparkles after OC'ing, tone it down some. 3DMark03 is nasty...especially the CPU only tests which can bring your system to a crawl. Basically, if you can make it through the test without it crashing to desktop and no sparkles, you're good.

I'm not currently OC'd. The 6800GT seems to run everything fine atm. Even with a Zalman CPU heatsink/fan and good case airflow, I never seem to have great temps in my computer. If you bought the BFG brand 6800 then you have a nice heatsink and dual fans on the card.

Ebumar · Post by **Ebumar** » August 17, 2005, 4:08 pm

Thanks for that comparison chart, Durew.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 17, 2005, 4:55 pm

Checking on prices I couldn't find the BFG 6800 GT OC for under $350 and the AGP version seem to be rare on top of that. I've read all the reviews and the next best card to the BFG seemed to be the EVGA 6800 GT 256MB GDDR3 card and it was $60 cheaper and in stock at NewEgg.

Last month EVGA started offering the exact same support as BFG (Lifetime warranty and 24/7 support), they have some dedicated msg boards and have a new trade up program in case I want to upgrade next year to PCIe so I decided on that one. It looks to be very close to the refrence design but from what I've read, rock solid. NewEgg had an Albatron that was even cheaper, $100 less than the BFG, but it had few reviews and is a very new company. Didn't really want to chance it spending that much cash. The EVGA had like 278+ customer reviews, all 5 stars so it can't be too bad. I'm sure it won't be as fast as the BFG but it should handle anything I can throw at it for now... should be a vast improvement over my old Ti4200.

Now I just need to get a couple of SATA drives and setup my RAID configuration, heh.

Marb

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » August 17, 2005, 6:19 pm

I is cheap so I is buy cheap.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131307

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 18, 2005, 11:15 am

you should go cheap if you are buying an AGP card.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 18, 2005, 12:16 pm

Too late... oh well, at least I'll have a killer AGP card, I can always move it to my wifes machine which is a P4 system when I move to PCIe.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 18, 2005, 1:06 pm

I was going to ask the same question, Marb beat me to it

Bought a 6600GT to get me by until I upgrade the MB and such sometime next year. Current 9600 Pro is going to replace the 8500 in the wifes machine.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » August 20, 2005, 10:07 pm

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?lo ... =88&var2=0

For future ref a nice little line up of vid card data.

Deneve · Post by **Deneve** » August 21, 2005, 7:33 pm

<--nub---
pci-e > agp 8x

?

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 22, 2005, 12:31 pm

Yes PCIe is greater than 8X AGP but to my knowledge no current graphics cards can push the theoretical bandwidth limit of 8X AGP. However they would be able to in a couple of generations so the switch was made now. The PCIe also allows, if your MB was designed for it, you to run dual cards for faster framerates.

I have to admit I'm VERY happy with the EVGA card I got... no games with it but man, it smokes. Much smoother in EQ2 and I can turn on a few more bells and whistles but that game is crazy insane on the graphics I don't think dual 7800GTXs in SLI on an FX-57 would allow for top quality and decent framerates. On the other hand I upped my resolution in WoW to 1280 and turn up everything as high as it would go without a stutter... very nice.

The other thing I noticed was that the 2D on the chip was 100 times better than my Ti4200. I run my desktop as 1280 or 1600 (depending on what kind of work I'm doing) and the clarity of the text was ATI 2D quality. Nvidia has really done some great work on these cards.

Cheers!
Marb

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 22, 2005, 5:02 pm

i was blown away by the size of my 6800GT pci-e card. the thing takes up my whole fuckin case

.

if i do run it SLI'd one day, glad sound and LAN are onboard, cause it would get pretty tight

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 22, 2005, 8:04 pm

Marbus wrote:Yes PCIe is greater than 8X AGP but to my knowledge no current graphics cards can push the theoretical bandwidth limit of 8X AGP. However they would be able to in a couple of generations so the switch was made now.

At which point the chipsets will have long since changed

Psyloche · Post by **Psyloche** » August 23, 2005, 8:46 am

Voronwë wrote:i was blown away by the size of my 6800GT pci-e card. the thing takes up my whole fuckin case .

if i do run it SLI'd one day, glad sound and LAN are onboard, cause it would get pretty tight

7800 GTX almost hits my fucking HDD cables, thinking of putting another one in there makes me a sad panda. I have a Sound card and wireless card (I'm too lazy to route wires and didn't think how crammed it could get) and man that mid-Tower seems so small now. I'm not sure how the 6800GT measures up against the 7800, but I just know that this was huge. Stuff crammed in a my case:

Athlon 64 3700+
1GB RAM
7800 GTX
Sound card
Wireless card
DVD burner
76GB HDD
300GB HDD
Floppy Drive
520W PSU

I didn't think it was that much til I actually put it in there. Routing cables was a whore trying to keep airflow etc. I thought the idea of a window was neat til I realized I *had* to route nice or it would look like total ass and everyone would see it that walked by.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 23, 2005, 10:40 am

yeah i 'm glad i dont have a window. more trouble than it is worth.